


Tying Cherry Knots, Smiling

by rufeepeach



Series: Reckless Abandon [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Golden Lace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-16
Updated: 2014-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-15 21:26:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1319785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lacey catches Mr Gold doing something he shouldn't</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tying Cherry Knots, Smiling

**Author's Note:**

> Lacey's seventeen, if that bothers you back away now

Lacey’s hanging about behind the Rabbit Hole, when she hears someone else’s breathing.

She’s not overly concerned - it’s a public alley, after all, and no one in this town who’d try anything hasn’t already - but she’d wanted to be on her own for a bit. She’d wanted to smoke and stare at the sky, and tell everyone tomorrow that she’d been at the bar all evening without having to lie. Moe’s inside. She’s hanging about waiting for him, like a five year old given a can of pop and told to sit outside with the other kids.

Moe’ll come to check on her soon - he sticks his head out the back, checks, then goes back inside - so she doesn’t move. Just smokes, stares at the sky, and listens to that other person breathing.

"Smoking’ll damage your lungs, dear," the other person speaks up, and Lacey didn’t know Mr Gold was one for late night walks, but even shit company is better than none.

"You’re the one on his third one in five minutes," she notes, "I’m savoring mine. Old person lungs die faster."

"Oh, aye, they teach you that in school?" he retorts, but he’s smiling in the gloom. She smiles back, and stretches against the wall in a way she hopes makes her boobs look bigger and her smile brighter in the florescent streetlight. He’s older than her father, and she’s seventeen, and he shouldn’t be staring: she catches him at it anyway.

"They would’ve if I’d shown up," she shrugs, and takes another drag. "You shouldn’t smoke at your age, you know. My dad’s always trying to quit."

Oh yeah, great job Lacey, bring up your father and the hot older guy’s age in the same sentence. This is why you’re alone.

Gold just laughs, “I’m not your father,” he notes, and his eyes linger brazenly on her legs. He’s as well-dressed as always, three-piece suit and tie, cane in one hand, cig in the other.

"That much is obvious," she returns, with a raised eyebrow. It’s summer, just, June and warm enough for a short dress and no tights. "You’re saying more than ‘where the fuck is my beer’ to me, for one thing."

She fishes out her flask, and takes a pull. She’s already buzzing from her last three, but another won’t hurt. Another can never hurt.

"I can think of a fair few better things to say to you than that," he says, and his voice is like caramel, sweet and smooth and warm, and she’s all wrapped up in it, drowning in it. He’s standing closer now, right beside her, almost crowding her, and fuck tonight is looking up. "First on the list would be a classic: what’s a nice girl like you doing here?"

"Nice?" she raises an eyebrow, "I don’t know who you have me confused with, Mr Gold, but I think there’d be a line to disagree with you."

"Hm, perhaps," he smirks like the devil himself, like butter wouldn’t melt, "How about young, then? Pretty? Drunk?"

"Those’ll do," she grins, "and I’m the clean up crew, waiting for a drunk Australian moron to come staggering out and order me to carry him home."

"Would a threat to the rent sober him up?" Gold asks, solicitously. "You must have better places to be."

"Sadly, no," she sighs, pouts, red lipstick and a red dress, long legs, black heels. He notices; she knows he does. She’s experimenting with a brazen, adult look - her usual sundresses and heels are fun, and shorts are easy to remove, but there’s something so sultry about a red dress, a cigarette, and a dark alley.

This town might be killing her, but she’s going out with a bang.

"And here I heard the legend of Lacey French," he murmurs, so so close now, "The most popular girl in school."

"I can tie a knot in a cherry stem," she whispers back, "That’s all anyone wants to know."

"You were reading, before I disturbed you," he notes. "That about cherry stems too? Handsome princes and true love?"

"I’m not a wistful, Jane Austen and fairytales kinda girl, Gold," she replies, "And I can’t tell you anyway." 

She smiles, impishly, and he laughs, intrigued. “Whyever not?”

"Rule one: we don’t talk about Fight Club," she winks, and stubs her cigarette out on the wall, and pushes away. She’ll walk away from him, and see if he chases her. See if she can catch him at something he shouldn’t, chasing a teenager, leering down her shirt. He’s close, now, but Lacey French is the master of the final push into depravity.

What do you get when you cross a bookworm and the school slut? A whore who can charge what she likes.

He takes her wrist as she walks away, just like she wanted. “Where are you going?”

"You’re right," she shrugs, "I’ve got better places to be. Unless you fancy giving an underage girl a reason to stay?"

"Your father will miss you."

"That’s my father’s problem," she notes. "Me? I see a group of guys under a bridge with a stolen keg, and my name on it."

He smiles, tightly, “I could give you a reason,” he promises, darkly.

"Oh, could you now?"

"Of course, but you’re nowhere near ready for that," he raises her wrist to his lips, and burns her with a kiss to the inside. Her knees nearly buckle at the sheer sensuality of it, so very different from a hasty, messy, unsatisfying fumble in the dark. She thinks she got more from that one, chaste kiss to her arm than from any meaningless fuck.

"Promises, promises," she whispers, and flits away, gone into the night.

She feels his eyes on her back, as she walks away, and he’s the one who rats her out to Moe. Ruby was in the bar that night too, and saw the bastard talking to him, telling him where to find her. Ruby’s lucky: she has a fake ID that has yet to be called out, and the bar has no stake in Granny’s good opinion.

That’s how Lacey ends up grounded, that long summer. She’d not have fucked any of the guys by the bridge anyway: one press of lips to her wrist, one sight of tobacco-brown eyes, and Lacey was a taken woman.


End file.
